


Sunny at Last

by downintheflames



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 02:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5188148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downintheflames/pseuds/downintheflames
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn was the one destroying everything and he was the one in ruins. The other four were fine, carrying on with the show like it didn’t matter. Like none of it ever mattered, like Zayn never mattered, not even for a moment.</p><p>(a quiet explosion of lives being ripped apart)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunny at Last

Sunny At Last

    The hardest part for Zayn to swallow was the quiet. There wasn’t yelling. It was him saying “I’m leaving” followed by absolute silence. The boys nodded. That was it. Harry didn’t throw anything, Zayn had prepared himself for bruises. Louis didn’t yell, Zayn was ready for his ears to ring for days. Niall didn’t ask him if he was kidding, Zayn was prepared to break Niall’s heart with a sledgehammer. Liam didn’t say a word, his silence was the worst. Liam, the boy with a blazing heart on his sleeve, nodded twice before leaving the room. The other boys followed after him, leaving Zayn paralyzed in the silence with the pieces of the life they built together shattered around him.  
      
    He packed his bags while the boys sound checked. He threw shoes violently against the walls, yelling WHY over and over and over. He was the one destroying everything and he was the one in ruins. The other four were fine, carrying on with the show like it didn’t matter. Like none of it ever mattered, like Zayn never mattered, not even for a moment.  
  
    So Zayn left. He caught a flight with anger boiling inside him. He screamed hurtful things he didn’t mean to the photos on his mantle. He watched the world melt at the news of his departure, faceless strangers showing more devastation than the boys ever did. Even in their public response, there was no emotion.

    The silence was so loud he couldn’t sleep. So he sang to fill up the space. His licked lyrics into microphones that couldn’t touch his heart. He smoked to fill his head with fog. When his head was in the clouds it didn’t sound so quiet. But after a while, even that wasn’t enough. He found loud mouthed people that talked just to hear their own voices. They’d scream at the world that they were going to change it. That they had the vision, the power, the knowledge. Zayn let them carry on, the whole time knowing it was all shit.

     But soon those voices faded too. He heard them almost as echoes bouncing around in the hollowed mess of his body. Liam was posting videos and pictures with Sophia. Harry was prancing around stage. Louis was out every night, he mouth so wide it hurt Zayn to look. Niall was golfing more than ever. And Zayn would keep his phone always where he could see it, ready to pounce the moment it lit up. But nothing came.  
Liam’s silence was the loudest. Zayn knew Liam’s voice and pattern of speech so well he could hold conversations with him in his head. He knew what his hands felt like. He knew the way he mumbled in his sleep. He knew the way he kissed, the way he grips hip bones, the way he left marks on the people he wanted. Zayn knew the way Liam ran from his feelings, claiming everything was a joke. Zayn never laughed. He didn’t laugh the night they stayed up ‘til four with their mouths carving river beds into each other’s skin. He didn’t laugh at the way Liam used any excuse to touch him, to pull him close to him, to press his thumbs into the marks he left the night before. Liam always said it was for a laugh. But they were shivering with intensity, not vibrating with laughter. They weren’t chuckling light heartedly as they slammed bed frames into hotel room walls.  
        
      Zayn was high the first time he sang “I won’t mind” absentmindedly to a nearly empty room. If the other person in the room hadn’t heard it, Zayn would have let the melody go. But he was pushed into a booth with the command to follow that vein and sing what he felt. He did and what spilled out of him were words he never thought he’d ever say. If Liam wanted to call it a joke, he’d laugh it off. He was always one to roll with the punches and this time was no exception. He didn’t mind and Liam would never be his.

      They wouldn’t exist in the same sphere. They wouldn’t revolve around each other. He wouldn’t see him. He wouldn’t feel his hands on his so often they felt like an extension of himself. Liam knew Zayn would always always catch him. Zayn never asked for Liam to reciprocate. Never asked him to love him back. Never asked for a damn thing. He wouldn’t talk about all the secrets their skin shared. He sang “you know I got you” with a smirk. He had the secrets, he had the ammunition, all he ever needed to do was open his mouth to destroy a brand he was exploited to create. But he never would. They knew it, he knew it, but he sat pretty in his secrets.

 **\--**  
     Louis was the first one to speak, or tweet. But even then, it wasn’t directed at him. Zayn never imagined he’d get hypothermia from a cold shoulder half a world away. But there he was shivering in a recording studio. He let the unfinished demo leak. If Louis wanted to act like Zayn didn’t have a twitter handle of his own, he’d kick dirt in his face. Zayn never thought the love could go so bitter so fast, but Louis’ name tasted like acid on his tongue.  
       
     The low blow was met with more silence. This time it felt even louder. There he was practically begging for a fight. Anything to show that they gave a flying fuck that he was recording music with other people far away from them. Nothing came. No angry texts. Louis never even once called drunk and ready to fight. Zayn blocked all their numbers on a Wednesday morning. It was six am and he still hadn’t slept. He was staring at the group text that hadn’t moved in months. The last thing Niall had sent was “goin’ for a round of golf tmrw if ya wan t join”. None of them had responded to the ridiculous invitation, just as Niall knew they would. He grit his teeth in anger again. None of them fought for him. Not one even said a word. They didn’t try. Zayn would have tried, he would have begged and screamed if he was in their position. He blocked all their numbers that morning. Knowing he had put up roadblocks was better than admitting they still didn’t care.

 **\--**  
      The second time Louis piped up Zayn was quick to talk back. He couldn’t help but smile as he hit send on his tweet. He could already anticipate the quick witted killer of an insult Louis was going to hurtle back at him. He sat back in his chair watching his notifications explode but not one tweet came from Louis. Zayn refreshed Louis’s twitter for days but Louis couldn’t be bothered to reply to him. Louis never ran from a fight, was always looking for new people to annoy. But he couldn’t be bothered to even tell Zayn to fuck off.  
       
     None of the boys reacted again. Zayn watched from the outside as they carried on. They didn’t blink when No Type leaked. It didn’t seem like any of the waves Zayn made rocked them in any way. The four loudest boys Zayn had ever meant with the most fragile hearts were so stoic while Zayn felt like his spine had be replaced with toothpicks.

      So Zayn made bigger waves. They would fucking see him, they had too. They needed to scream at him, scold him, tell him he ruined everything. They needed to shove him, drown him in their hurt, leave bruises on his wrists from clinging on. They needed to act like he mattered, they were his everything. They needed to tell him he mattered to them because he didn’t matter to himself anymore.  
        
      Those years had ripped them all apart and when he walked away he couldn’t tell which pieces were his and which were theirs. It was just a mess and he didn’t know how to fix it. He never ever had learned how to fix things once they were broken. Liam was always better at apologies. Harry was always the one putting together puzzles. Louis was always the one that spoke what Zayn needed to say and he would do it so loud the whole world would shut up. Niall was always the one that made Zayn feel safe in his brokenness because Niall was always there loving him no matter how sharp his edges became.

     Without them he was all cracked fiber class with a mouth that was out of words. They were on to bigger and better, like Zayn was a weight holding them down all along. And of course there was a tiny voice in his head saying that he was all wrong, that he just didn’t understand, and that little voice sounded a lot like Liam. But if he was all wrong, why didn’t they ache like him? Why weren’t they screaming like him? Why did nothing he do even dent them in the slightest? When did he stop mattering to them?  
       
     And as Zayn sits alone in his new house in LA he can’t help but wonder if everything was just five scared boys holding onto the closest solid thing. Their lives became a storm and they used each other’s bodies as shelter. Now Zayn is alone in cloudless LA, the storm isn’t as strong when he’s out on his own. He loves the sunshine but sometimes he misses the shelter of the four boys he knew better than himself. Now he doesn’t even know what’s on their mind.

**Author's Note:**

> hey babes, you can find me at downintheflames on tumblr <3


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